ACE Charitable Foundation makes two-year, US$300,000 commitment to The Conservation Fund to help protect key watersheds, expand wildlife migration corridors, stimulate green business initiatives across the U.S.

Wendy Lisney

PHILADELPHIA, Pennsylvania , March 2, 2012 (press release) – The ACE Group announced today that the ACE Charitable Foundation has a made a two-year, $300,000 commitment to The Conservation Fund for new initiatives aimed at protecting key watersheds, expanding wildlife migration corridors and investing in local green economies in the U.S.

With this new funding commitment, ACE has provided $850,000 since 2005 to the ACE Land Legacy Fund, a revolving pool of capital within The Conservation Fund that has been leveraged with other capital sources to protect more than 300,000 acres of the nation’s most threatened lands and waters.

“We are proud to continue to protect the environment through the ACE Land Legacy Fund,” said Evan G. Greenberg, Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of ACE Limited. “With this new grant, we are joining forces with individuals, companies and foundations in financing innovative initiatives designed to make a positive impact on the environment and stimulate entrepreneurial green business activity.”

“ACE continues to demonstrate its commitment to environmental responsibility through its participation in the ACE Land Legacy Fund,” said Larry Selzer, President and Chief Executive Officer of The Conservation Fund. “We’re pleased to serve as a partner in supporting projects that conserve wilderness areas for future generations.”

In the past year, the ACE Land Legacy Fund grant was leveraged with public and private financing to help The Conservation Fund protect more than 4,000 acres near three family ranches along Montana’s Rocky Mountain Front. These serve as key migration corridors for wildlife including the grizzly bear, lynx, wolverine and elk. The ACE Land Legacy Fund also supported efforts to secure a stretch of the Nanticoke River within the Greater Philadelphia Delaware Bay watershed and funded a waterway protection effort along the Kishwaukee River in the Chicago-to-Milwaukee metropolitan corridor.

In addition to these conservation initiatives, ACE’s grant supports The Conservation Fund’s newly established ShadeFund™ program, an initiative that provides financing to green microenterprises nationwide. ShadeFund was established by The Conservation Fund with a lead grant from the U.S. Endowment for Forestry and Communities and provides small loans to promising green entrepreneurs by pooling contributions from individuals, companies and foundations. As the companies repay their loans, capital is redeployed to help other entrepreneurs, thus creating jobs, preserving working forests and supporting rural communities across the country.

The Conservation Fund is the nation’s foremost environmental nonprofit, dedicated to protecting America’s most important landscapes and waterways for future generations. The Conservation Fund pioneers a balanced, non-advocacy, non-membership approach to conservation—one that blends environmental and economic goals and objectives. Since its founding in 1985, the Fund has helped its partners safeguard wildlife habitat, working farms and forests, community green space, and historic sites totaling nearly 7 million acres nationwide.

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About The ACE Charitable Foundation

The ACE Charitable Foundation assists less fortunate individuals and communities around the world in achieving and sustaining healthy lives. Through a combination of Foundation grants and employees volunteer initiatives, ACE focuses its support in the areas of education, the environment, and poverty and health.
About The ACE Group

About The ACE Group

The ACE Group is a global leader in insurance and reinsurance serving a diverse group of clients. Headed by ACE Limited (NYSE:ACE), a component of the S&P 500 stock index, the ACE Group conducts its business on a worldwide basis with operating subsidiaries in more than 50 countries. Additional information can be found at: www.acegroup.com.

About The Conservation Fund

At The Conservation Fund, we combine a passion for conservation with an entrepreneurial spirit to protect your favorite places before they become just a memory. A hallmark of our work is our deep, unwavering understanding that for conservation solutions to last, they need to make economic sense. Top-ranked, we have protected nearly 7 million acres across America.

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